Leaflets & Lecturers

Lord MacMillan was dull. Sir John Reith was dour. Alfred Duff Cooper was social. Then into the British Ministry of Information came red-haired Brendan Bracken, young (41), quick-witted protege of Winston Churchill.

Aghast at how quickly the civil-servant mentality can figure out committees to waste time, the new minister overhauled his top personnel in what became known as Bracken's Blitzkrieg. Since then he has built up a photographic department, given the hotfoot to BBC, made friends with U.S. correspondents, gained new respect for the M.O.I, from British newspapers.

After almost a full year in office, he told the House of Commons last week what other things his department had done, a few things it would and would not do in the future.

In R.A.F. raids over Europe since January, 145,000,000 M.O.I. leaflets, of 166 different types, have been dropped over Europe, 61,000,000 of them over Germany.

> BBC sends out more than 3,000,000 words a week in 43 languages, reaches 200,000,000 persons weekly and, despite its critics, is "the largest and most trusted broadcasting instrument in the world."

> A department of political warfare, long advocated in Britain as a new weapon of modern war, has been set up to coordinate British propaganda agencies. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden formulates policy, Bracken carries it out.

M.P.s were not unaware of the danger that, as "chief whip" of the onetime two-man Churchill party (Churchill was the other member), Bracken might crack down on criticism of the present Government. But no previous minister has been as forthright as Bracken in demanding and promising safeguards for a critical press. Said he: "The Ministry does not and will not try to control the press."

On propaganda in the U.S. Bracken had just as strong opinions. "The request is made," he said, "for full-blooded propaganda in the U.S., but anyone with the slightest knowledge of the country could see that America and the American Government would never tolerate it. Any high-powered publicity mission instructed to force Britain down the throats of the American people would not only be resented, but would almost certainly defeat its own purpose."

As far as he was concerned. Bracken added, he believed reported anti-British feeling in the U.S. was considerably exaggerated. And before cooling down he had his say about British lecturers: "There will be no more of them going to the U.S. They do more harm than good."* From across the ocean the Washington News added an amen:

"Why can't the well-intentioned Nervous Nellies of both countries stop this constant digging up the roots of Anglo-British friendship? . . . Americans are pro-British for the best reason in the world, because we must hang together or hang separately."

* Neither will there be any repetition of the V for Victory radio propaganda to Occupied Europe by Colonel Britton. M.P.s approved V as a symbol but damned its use in cops-&-robbers melodramas and soap operas. They recalled that on July 20, 1941, Dutch patriots were led to expect a V invasion army, tried to cooperate by bringing out hidden foodstocks and were promptly rounded up by the Nazis.

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